As he reached the High Street he began to feel nervous. After all, Clare might not want to see him. He remembered vaguely their last interview and the snub she had given him. He looked further back and remembered the first time he had ever seen her; that dinner at the Head's house on the first evening of the summer term.... But he could not help being nervous. He tried to think that what he was doing was something perfectly natural and ordinary; that he was just paying a call on a friend as anybody might have done on a return from a holiday. He was angry with himself for getting so excited about the business. And when he rang the bell of the side-door next to the shop he had the distinct hope that she would not be in. But she was in. She came to the door herself, and it was so dark outside that she could not see him. "Who is it?" she asked, and he replied, rather fatuously expecting her to recognise his voice immediately: "Me. I hope I'm not disturbing you." She answered, in that characteristically unafraid way of hers: "I'm sure I don't know in the least who you are. Will you tell me your name?" Then he said, rather embarrassedly: "Speed, my name is." "Oh?" Such a strange surprised little "Oh?" He could not see her any more than she could see him, but he knew that she was startled. "Am I disturbing you?" he went on. "Oh, no. You'd better come inside. There's nobody in except myself, so I warn you." "Warn me of what?" "Of the conventions you are breaking by coming in." "Would you rather I didn't?" "Oh, don't trouble about me. It's yourself you must think about." "Very well then, I'll come in." "Right. There are five steps, then two paces along the level, and then two more steps. It's an old house, you see." In the dark and narrow lobby, with the front door closed behind him, and Clare somewhere near him in the darkness, he suddenly felt no longer nervous but immensely exhilarated, as if he had taken some decisive and long contemplated step--some step that, wise or unwise, would at least bring him into a new set of circumstances. Something in her matter-of-fact directions was immensely reassuring; a feeling of buoyancy came over him as he felt his way along the corridor with Clare somewhat ahead of him. She opened a door and a shaft of yellow lamplight came out and prodded the shadows. "My little sitting-room," she said. It was a long low-roofed apartment with curtained windows at either end. Persian rugs and tall tiers of bookshelves and some rather good pieces of old furniture gave it a deliciously warm appearance; a heavily shaded lamp was the sole illumination. Speed, quick to appreciate anything artistic, was immediately impressed; he exclaimed, on the threshold: "I say, what a gloriously old-fashioned room!"